The Star Gate Program

The U.S. government’s military and intelligence communities funded anomalous cognition (AC; aka informational psi, remote viewing, extrasensory perception) and psychokinesis (PK) applications and research for 23 years at a total level of support of about US $19,443 million. In the early years, it was known as a “psychoenergetics” program, in keeping with the Soviet term for the phenomena. Although small in terms of what is usually budgeted for traditional programs within these organizations, such funding represented the largest support in the history of the field of parapsychology.

The raison d’etre of Star Gate was primarily to determine whether the intelligence alluded to by the Soviet Bloc research in this field posed a national security threat. If so, the first and foremost question was: are such capabilities real and implementable? All aspects of the research and applied program were in support of this primary mission. Did the Star Gate program satisfy this objective? Yes, and here is why.

Are such capabilities real and implementable? All aspects of the research and applied program were in support of this primary mission. Did the Star Gate program satisfy this objective? Yes...

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Between the SRI and the remote viewing (RV) operations group at Meade, a total of 504 separate intelligence missions were tasked by a variety of agencies that required 2865 individual remote viewings to accomplish the stated missions.
Of the 19 client agencies between 1973-1995, 17 were returning customers for the RVHUMINT collection product – an 89.5% customer return rate. It seems highly unlikely that there would be such a high customer return rate if the RV-HUMINT information were not worthy of such attention.

Another way to answer this question would be to query each tasking agency as to the mission-by-mission assessment. These data were not available. A third way to answer this question would be to provide such an assessment by outcome measures that might be contained in the CIA declassified data release. But only a small number of such assessments were released. Perhaps this is so because, in the tasking agency –> collector –> analyst –> tasking agency cycle it is rare that the collector receives any direct feedback as to the success or failure of any given task. Until 1985 when the US Army Medical Research and Development Command issued a 5-year, $10M contract to SRI, there was little research activity. Since the funding communities were satisfied with the intelligence product, they were mostly uninterested in how psi worked.

Some application-oriented qualitative research was conducted; that is, what are the parameters to find better remote viewers, what are the best protocols for good production, etc. Also, when the intelligence communities learned of psi activity in the former Soviet Union, other East Bloc nations, and the People’s Republic of China, the Star Gate researchers were asked to determine the degree to which these claims were true.

Over the years, SRI and SAIC had a total staff of 20 full time people, nine consultants and two visiting scientists. Additionally, nearly $700,000 USD were awarded to subcontractors many of whom were in the psi research arena. The overall research direction, which was even specified by the Central Intelligence Agency as early as 1975, was to examine the physics of the phenomena – how is it possible for information to transcend space and time – and what are the characteristics of individuals who may have a natural gift. These investigations involved cognitive psychology, physiological, and personality variables. Often Star Gate is generally considered a CIA program; however, the CIA was responsible for only 1% of the Star Gate funding.

Uncharacteristic of such a small US Government-funded program, Star Gate captured the attention and direct involvement of very senior individuals across the government. These included, US Presidents and Vice Presidents, directors of the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, many elements of the Department of Defense, and members of important committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Uncharacteristic of such a small US Government-funded program, Star Gate captured the attention and direct involvement of very senior individuals across the government.

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In a government-requested meta-analysis, the results of the SRI research from 1973-1988 were:

Remote viewing (RV) can provide useful intelligence information.
Laboratory and operational remote viewing show the greatest potential for practical applications.
Experienced viewers are significantly better than the general
Approximately 1% of the general population possesses a natural remote viewing
Remote viewing ability does not degrade over time.
At this time, there is no quantitative evidence to support a training
Natural scenes are significantly better than symbols as targets for remote viewing.
Remote viewing quality is independent of target distance and/or
There is no evidence to support the idea that a psychoenergetic interaction with the physical world exists.
Electromagnetic shielding is not effective against psychoenergetic acquisition of information.
A potential central nervous system correlate to remote viewing has recently been identified.

For all the Star Gate years, the program was overseen by independent scientists, medical people (IRB), and policy experts to assure the quality of the work. The details of the program will be available in four large volumes called the Star Gate Archives. Volumes 1 and 2 of this archive contain the entire research reports in remote viewing from 1972-1995; the psychokinesis research, presented in Volume 3 of this archive, found insufficient evidence for the support of the mind-over-matter hypothesis; Volume 4 contains memorandums, letters, reports, and reviews originated by government personnel.